Uncle Harry
by spwarkle
Summary: Harry has to explain to a four-year-old Teddy what happened to his parents.


**It's been less than twelve hours since I posted my first HP oneshot, but this one is something I've been working on for longer and I thought I would post it too. I am sure this – or an equivalent – is already out there somewhere, but I had to write it.**

**Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it. And I don't think there's much you won't recognise, either.**

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><p>"Uncle Harry, where's my mummy and daddy?"<p>

Harry almost stalled the car. He slowed down ever so slightly, so that he could turn and glance at the little boy sitting in the seat next to him.

"What makes you ask that, Ted?"

Teddy looked up. As he did so, his hair grew a few inches, falling into his eyes. He huffed at it impatiently and it shrank away again.

"Everyone at school has a mummy or a daddy. Some of them have both. They don't all get picked up by their..." Teddy struggled for a word and Harry smiled softly. "people like you."

"Their guardians?" Harry tried.

"Yeah, that."

There was a few seconds silence and Harry hoped, rather desperately, that Teddy had forgotten the subject. After all, how did one explain to a four year old boy that his parents had both been killed when he was only a few months old? But as Harry stopped the car outside the familiar house, Teddy spoke up again.

"Where are they, Uncle Harry?"

Harry sighed. "I think that's a story for when you're a bit older, Teddy."

"Why?"

"It just is." Harry climbed out of the car and hurried to open Teddy's door, but not before he caught sight of the disappointed look on the boy's face. He instantly regretted his harsh words and, as he opened the door, apologised. Teddy barely seemed to hear, he had just caught sight of the woman standing gin the doorway.

"Grandma!"

The little boy ran forwards and his hair lightened from its dark brown to a beautiful golden blond as he launched himself into his grandmother's arms. She frowned at him.

"Teddy, what did we tell you about changing your hair like that?"

"Sorry Grandma," The little boy pouted, and his expression was so cute that Andromeda laughed and hugged him.

"It's okay Teddy." She placed him on the ground and kissed his forehead. "There's some sandwiches in the kitchen."

The little boy disappeared into the house just as Harry climbed the stairs up to the front door, his arms full of Teddy's school bags and the school jumper he had left on the front seat. Harry gave Andromeda a swift kiss on the cheek and then proceeded to hang up the bags on the hook inside the door. He couldn't help but smile sadly at the picture dominating the wall of the hallway. To a stranger, it would have meant nothing, but to Harry, it meant the world. There were very few surviving pictures of Lupin and Tonks, there had never been many to begin with.

There were photos in every room of the house, and almost every one of them made Harry stop and think. Pictures of the deceased laughing and waving at him as he walked passed, a glimpse of the past, a time that had been so different in so many times. Harry wasn't quite sure which time he preferred; the few precious months when everyone he cared for had been healthy, but under imminent threat, or the years of freedom he was currently experiencing that lacked so many happy faces.

Shaking his head, Harry turned back to the woman standing next to him. Andromeda had aged rather a lot with the loss of her husband and only daughter, but had always kept herself together for the sake of her grandson. Although her hair was greying and she was looking older, she was still the same woman Harry had met all those years ago, in the midst of all the confusion and loss that had shaken the wizarding world.

"Are you alright, Harry?" She asked gently. "You seem very quiet."

"Yeah, I'm fine..." Harry looked serious. It wasn't the sort of expression you often saw, but if you knew Harry Potter, you were used to it. It was an expression he had worn a lot over the last few years. In the aftermath of the war, as he attended funerals and made speeches in honour of the dead, Harry had almost permanently adopted the look. "Teddy asked me where his parents were on the way here."

"Oh."

For a long time, there was nothing said. Harry could hear the blare of the television in the back room and was fully aware of the young boy's giggles and chattering, but heeded little attention. Andromeda had fixed her gaze on the image on the wall, the only image of her daughter and son-in-law on their wedding day. They looked so happy, so pleased to be together. It was one of the few moments of happiness anybody had experienced over those tough months.

"I try," Andromeda whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "I try so hard to give him everything he needs. I try to raise him like they would have done. I send him to a muggle school, so he lives both ways of life, I do what I think they would have wanted, but I know I'll never fill that hole." She fixed her teary gaze on Harry. "He's such a good little boy..." Andromeda wiped a drop of water from her cheek before it could fall any further, yet Harry knew she didn't want to be comforted. At least not yet. "He deserves to understand why he's being raised by his old grandma, who doesn't even have the energy to take him to and from school every day."

"Dromeda," Harry reached out to place a consoling hand on her shoulder. "You are the best grandmother any boy could wish for. I honestly wish I could have grown up with someone like you, someone who cared, and went out of their way to make me happy. You try your hardest to make Teddy happy, and _that _is what matters. He should be proud of his parents, yes, but he should also be proud of you, the woman who has been looking after him since he was a mere baby."

"But, I feel so useless sometimes," Andromeda muttered softly. "I mean, I'm always calling on you, asking you to take care of him because I'm too tired, or getting you to pick him up from school. You're the one who takes care of Teddy's muggle life, but I feel like I'm always calling on you to take care of his wizarding one too." She sniffed. "How many times have I interrupted your time with Ginny so that-?"

"No, Dromeda, no. Ginny and I love spending time with Teddy. She thinks it's going to be great practise for when she has our baby, and she is always begging me to have him around more. You are the best substitute parent Teddy could possibly want."

Andromeda sighed softly and looked up at Harry. She knew he was right, she knew he was speaking sense, yet she sometimes felt so useless when it came to raising a child in the modern world. She didn't know anything about the muggle world, except how to turn on the television and dial a number on the phone that Harry had got for her. She could barely look at Teddy without being reminded of her daughter. She knew that the little boy deserved the truth. His parents had died fighting in order to make sure he had a happy, secure life, and had sacrificed their own lives for his. She wanted him to know, but she knew that she wasn't strong enough to tell him herself.

"Tell him, Harry. Tell him everything. Tell him who they were and that they died fighting, tell him they didn't want to leave him. Tell him they loved him."

"I will do."

"Now. Go and tell him now while it's still on his mind. Go on, go." Andromeda pushed him towards the room at the back of the house before he could say another word and Harry swallowed back tears of his own.

As he entered the room, Teddy looked up at him. The little boy had turned off the television and was sitting on the floor. His expression was far too innocent for Harry's comfort.

"What did you do, Ted?" He tried to keep his tone serious, but his voice cracked. Teddy, luckily, was preoccupied.

He held up two pieces of splintered wood. There was a mischievous grin on his face as he waved the piece in his left hand and a few pathetic red sparks shot out of it.

"It broke again, Uncle Harry."

Harry groaned. If he had known how much trouble the toy wand was going to be, he would never have listened to Ginny's suggestions. Every few weeks, Teddy would try, yet again, to imitate his grandmother's spells, tapping the wand on a piece of furniture just a little bit too hard and consequently breaking it in half. Harry had long since discovered that the only person who could successfully repair it was Ginny.

"I'll see what I can do." Harry took the offered bits of wand and slipped them into his pocket before sitting down next to his godson. "So what do you want to do, Teddy?"

"Uncle Harry, are my mummy and daddy dead?"

Harry blinked several times. "What makes you think that, Teddy?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, Ted. You can tell me."

Teddy looked up hesitantly. "I never met them, and there's lots of pictures of people in the house that grandma says died in the war."

"There are, aren't there."

Teddy nodded, encouraged by Harry's answer. "Is one of them my parents?"

Very slowly, Harry nodded. He could almost see the Teddy's heart drop in the expression on his face as he realised what Harry's nod meant.

"I'm sorry, Teddy." He reached out to wrap the little boy in his arms.

"How did they die?"

The look on Teddy's face was not the look of a four year old. No matter how close to his fifth birthday he was, Harry had never expected the boy to wear such an expression at the age of four. It was deadly serious, every muscle in his face seemed to have lost it's usual softness. Even his eyes had changed to a steely grey as he asked they question, and Harry almost winced.

"They were killed in the big battle. You remember the one that Uncle Fred died in?" Teddy nodded. "Your mummy and daddy died in it too. They were very brave."

Teddy's mouth formed a perfect 'o' shape, but no noise came out. He looked completely broken. Harry knew how he felt. Knowing that your parents are gone, and that you will never have the opportunity to meet them, or speak to them, is one of the worst feelings in the world. In fact, Harry was pretty sure that no pain he had ever felt lived up to the pain of living with no parents to guide you. Nothing would ever quite be able to fill that hole inside of him.

Teddy's eyes were misted over with tears as he looked up. "Did they love me?"

"Of course they did, Teddy, they still do. Very much."

Teddy sat very still for a long time. He didn't speak, or move, and Harry knew he was trying to absorb the news. In some ways, he was to young to understand, which meant the pain wouldn't be quite so great. If he grew up with the knowledge of what had happened to Tonks and Lupin, he would be able to accept it.

That didn't mean it sank in easily. There must have been ten minutes of silence before Andromeda appeared at the door.

"Teddy," She bent down to the little boys level. "Do you want to come and have your bath? Uncle Harry needs to get home."

Teddy nodded and stood up slowly. He reached out to take his grandma's hand and held it very tightly.

As Andromeda reached the door, she turned to Harry and smiled at him.

"Thank you,"

"Your welcome, Dromeda."

Harry left the house just minutes later, walking out to the car slightly slower than usual. His mind didn't seem to be with him, he was thinking of all the people, the friends, that he had lost. Lupin, Tonks, Sirius, Fred, heck, he even missed Colin Creevey, sometimes. Nothing was the same now as it had been. It never would be again. He knew that, but he still hadn't adjusted to it.

"I don't think I ever will." He muttered to himself.

It was almost a four hour drive back to his house, but he hadn't once driven the entire distance yet. He left his car outside the Leaky Cauldron when he didn't need it; it lived there most of the time. Today was no different. He drove to the little pub, parked the car just outside the door and then disapparated with a small pop.

For a few seconds, he found it hard to breathe. His whole body was begin squashed, forced down the tube, air was scarce and his lungs were shrinking. Then, he was standing on his front step. He smiled as he opened the door and stepped inside.

"Ginny?" he called. "I'm home!"

Ginny came wobbling out of the living room seconds later, holding her hand to her back and groaning slightly. She was absolutely huge for somebody only six months pregnant, and she knew it.

"Hey, love." Said Harry, pressing a light hand to the bump and leaning over to kiss her lightly.

Ginny noticed his subdued tone and frowned. "What's up?"

"I..." Harry sighed. "Teddy asked me today where his parents were."

"Oh."

"He also figured out that they were dead."

"Oh, poor Teddy."

"I told him, Andromeda wasn't up to it."

"What did he do?"

"He was sad, understandably, and he asked me if they loved him. I told him they do."

"And they do," Ginny smiled and took her husband's hand. "They still do, even if they're not here to see him, they're out there, somewhere. They might have gone, Harry, but remember that the world is a better place."

"I know, love, I know."

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><p><strong>I didn't know how to end it, but I quite like the middle, where Harry actually tells Teddy.<strong>

**What did you think?**

****Spwarkle****


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